Since its inception in 2013, the Georgetown University Law Library has developed an in-house digitization program dedicated to digitizing materials in the Law Library collection, working to develop digital tools where commercial solutions don’t exist, and providing long-term protection and availability of the Law Library’s digital assets.

The Digital Initiatives department is responsible for creating preservation-quality digital images and conducting post-production editing to generate high quality access copies. The department also develops and maintains best practices for metadata creation ensuring that digital materials are properly described for seamless integration into our digital repositories.

Our digitization program is equipped with multiple large-capacity scanners to achieve high quality digital images. Our equipment allows us to digitize materials in the Law Library collection across multiple formats and sizes including oversized or fragile materials. We also utilize industry standard software to perform post-production processes on images including image enhancement, noise reduction, and color correction, to ensure that each digital reproduction faithfully reflects the integrity of the original item.

The Law Library’s digital preservation activities are integral to safeguarding our digital assets. This includes applying accurate descriptive metadata, performing regular inventory and integrity checks, and providing redundant storage both in the cloud and on physical media. In partnership with the Georgetown University Library, the Law Library is an associate member of Academic Preservation Trust, which is a consortium of higher education institutions committed to providing both a sustainable preservation repository for digital content and collaboratively developed services related to that content.

The selection of our current projects is not only driven by the intrinsic value of the materials themselves, but by a strategic focus on research impact and community engagement. Projects are assessed according to their research or scholarly value, physical condition and ability to withstand digitization, and demand for access among other factors. We also invite projects that present opportunities for collaborations with other libraries or organizations that benefit the research and teaching missions of the Law Center.